Sharon Stone On Entering a New Phase of Her Career With 'Lovelace' and Her Brief (And Only) Taste of Porn

Sharon Stone stars as Linda Lovelace's mom in "Lovelace," the sad biopic of the famed "Deep Throat" star, helmed by "HOWL" duo Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman -- but you'd be hard pressed to know that, even after seeing the film. Virtually unrecognizable thanks to a wig, added on wrinkles and a startling physical transformation, Stone walks away with the most revelatory performance in the film, remarkable considering her over 30 years in the business.

photo by Clint Spaulding/Patrick McMullan Co.Sharon Stone at a screening of "Lovelace" hosted by The Cinema Society and MCM with Grey Goose

Sharon Stone stars as Linda Lovelace's mom in "Lovelace," the sad biopic of the famed "Deep Throat" star, helmed by "HOWL" duo Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman -- but you'd be hard pressed to know that, even after seeing the film. Virtually unrecognizable thanks to a wig, added on wrinkles and a startling physical transformation, Stone walks away with the most revelatory performance in the film, remarkable considering her over 30 years in the business.

At 55 years old, the Oscar nominee now finds herself at a new, exciting stage in her career. As she revealed to Indiewire during a candid 20-minute chat last week, Stone feels that a "new door has opened, that there's another room of
possibilities." "That's the great thing about being an older lady," she joked.

You were only 14 when "Deep Throat" came out. When did you first hear of it?

I was in the 9th grade at the time, so I probably wouldn't have heard anything about that at all. I'm guessing it was probably a joke or something when I was living in Europe and modeling. You know I just don't know. I don't know because I've never seen pornography, I've never seen a porno movie.

"I've never seen a porno movie."

Ever?

Mm-mm.

Wow.

I mean when I lived in Europe I saw part of this film called "Emanuelle."

Not a porn film, though it was X-rated.

Yeah, it wasn't exactly, literally pornography.

More of a soft-core arthouse film.

So in reality I've never really seen pornography. I have in some Nordic European countries changed the channel and it's on regular television, and I clicked by. I remember specifically some kind of S&M thing as I was switching by and just finding myself in peals of laughter.

Because you know being a filmmaker, you can only imagine what it must be like being on one of those sets. [Starts smacking her leg in peals of laughter.] So how anybody can think that that's sexy? To me it's just ludicrous, it's just ludicrous. I think there's nothing less sexy than doing a sex scene, having done a sex scene. It's so unsexy that doing a porno must be like comical.

I love the fact that your first porno was an S&M one. You didn't get exposed to it lightly.

Well, I saw four seconds of it, of some guy in like the whole leather gear with his butt out, and a woman standing next to him in a whole leather gear with a whip. And I thought, "That's…hilarious."

So you never saw "Deep Throat," or did you see it in preparation for the role?

No, no. There's no need for me to do that. No.

You're pretty unrecognizable in the role of Dorothy Boreman, Lovelace's strict mother.

So many people said "I thought you were in that movie?" [Laughs]

How did your casting come about? This role was quite the stretch for you.

We got a call. Chuck Binder who's been my manager for a hundred years, said "They're interested in you for this movie," and I'm at this point now where I'm kind of interested in playing these wonderful young actors' moms…

[Laughs]

I'm like OK let me take a look, particularly because Rob and Jeff were directing and I'm an enormous fan of their work. Not just their work but their integrity and the kind of projects they do and the kind of approach that they've taken to the projects that they do. I mean my god these guys won the Peabody! Beyond just that they won the Oscar, "Stories From the Quilt" and the Harvey Milk story. And as a long-time AIDS activist and as a human rights activist the integrity of the kind of guys they are is really meaningful to me. So when they said they want to make this movie it was clear to me what kind of movie it would be. They are people whose moral compass is really pointing north. They're not people who were going to make a movie that was stupid. And so I understood when I read the script what this part could be. I knew who I was dealing with. And so given that, I felt that it was a kind of calling. And that working for them and doing that part would have profound meaning for me. And it did. It does.